The January transfer window has only been closed a month but Coventry City are already looking ahead to the summer to ensure the club are primed and ready to do the business they want to do.
At the minute, of course, the Sky Blues have put themselves in with a real shout of making the Championship play-offs, having moved up to fifth place in the league following Saturday’s 3-2 win at Oxford United.
Frank Lampard’s men have 11 games to secure a place in the top six and have a crack at promotion via the back door, all of which means City’s recruitment department has to plan for two very different outcomes; staying in the second tier and preparing to go again next season or hitting the Premier League jackpot and shopping in a very different market in order to compete with top flight football.
Asked if he has half an eye on the summer transfer window himself, the head coach said: “Yeah, it’s not half an eye though. I don’t know, maybe an eighth of an eye or something, you know. It’s a small bit in my head because I think a modern day coach’s job is so day to day, week to week, that it’s really difficult to jump too far ahead.
“But I think we have a responsibility to do that, so Dean (Austin, head of recruitment) is constantly doing that with Doug (King). We’re in constant communication with it and understanding where the squad’s at and where we want to get it to. But those things are always very fluid and mobile to the end of the season and the summer, and along with contracts and agents and all these things.”
He added: “So I think we try and cover all bases, generally, but my focus is absolutely on what’s in front of us now because we’re the masters of now and what we can do, whether we can make the play-offs or not and what that will mean for the club for next season. There are obvious variables so we try to stay ahead of those, but my main focus is, obviously, day to day.”
Having come in mid-season, Lampard has been constantly assessing his largely inherited squad, aside from his first and only permanent signing to date, Matt Grimes. And the 46-year-old is keen to use the final few months of the campaign to allow his squad to make an even bigger impression before the summer when, inevitably, decisions will be made on players who are both in and out of contract.
“Yeah, and that’s one of my biggest learnings probably in management in the last years is that to cast early judgments is a mistake,” said the City boss.
“You have to give players time, you have to work with them, see them develop, see them succeed – fail a bit, succeed, fail a bit – that’s normal. And we’re still absolutely in that process and you want to give them confidence.
“You want to give them the opportunity to impress you in training to get in the team, to stay in the team and it can go all ways with that. It can go up and down and that’s why I try and keep very level headed.
“This is what we’ve got now and it’s about what can we do with these players now and see them all individually improve. And then, you know, you make your decisions down the line if they are to be made. So we’re absolutely in that process.”
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